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Notes on the "Appendix Vergiliana"

1967; Classical Association of Canada; Volume: 21; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1086618

1929-4883

E. Courtney,

Classical Antiquity Studies

What does haec propter refer to (for we can leave in limbo Leo's strange idea that propter governs culices)? Professor Clausen, HSCP 68 (1964) 127, takes its reference to be to what precedes: and Octavius, like Catullus (50.1-5) and Calvus, had spent some leisure hours together composing graceful and elegant verses; now because of this experience, Vergil hopes that the Culex, which he offers to Octavius, may be of similar elegance. This is out of the question; we cannot extract the meaning required from lusimus without such clarification from the context as Catullus gives, and without clarification it must be the plural of authorship (as opposed to uterque nostrum in Catullus) and refer to the Culex itself, not to previous essays. Others refer haec propter to what follows, reading ut in 4; but in the first place it is odd to say that one aspires to doctrina for the sake of accuracy (surely poets should aspire to accuracy for the sake of doctrina), and secondly the expression is very disjointed in that we badly miss a connective to indicate the logical relationship of this sentence to the preceding lusimus .... If then haec propter cannot refer either to what precedes or to what follows, it must be corrupt, and I propose at pro re (Leo had already thought of pro re). The sense will then be that this poem is lusus, but at the same time the writer hopes that it has doctrina proportionate to the subject, neither too little nor too much, that the narrative may be found to agree with the facts (a typical piece of Hellenistic pedantry), though again it has to be remembered that this is lusus and not a historical monograph, and that the style may match the dignity of the heroes whom the gnat sees in the underworld. The best illustration of the passage is that quoted by Phillimore, CP 5 (1910) 420--Macrob. Sat. 5.14.11: res ante transactas opportune ad narrationis suae seriem revocat ut et historicum stilum vitet, non per ordinem digerendo quae gesta sunt.... I should like to remark that, while most of Phillimore's paper is sheer delirium, a few details are not and have been undeservedly neglected.